Prime minister Naoto Kan declared a nuclear emergency as his trade minister admitted that a radiation leak might occur at the Fukushima power plant.
The reactor’s cooling system failed after the 8.9-magnitude tremor hit northern Japan at 2.46pm local time. Pressure in the reactor was rising despite the US Air Force flying extra coolant to the plant.
Japan's massive earthquake caused a power outage that disabled a nuclear reactor's cooling system, triggering evacuation orders for about 3,000 residents as the government declared its first-ever state of emergency at a nuclear plant.
Reports were also emerging of a second atomic plant in the earthquake-hit area experiencing reactor cooling problems.
At least 1,000 people were feared dead last night after the “superquake” 81 miles out to sea triggered a tsunami that sent a 30ft wall of water crashing into Japan’s Pacific coast.
Police said 200 to 300 bodies were found in Sendai, 150 miles north of Tokyo. Another 151 were confirmed killed elsewhere, with 547 missing. At least 800 people were injured.
Fires caused by the tremor were burning in towns and cities along a 1,300-mile stretch of coastline. An oil refinery was one of dozens of buildings ablaze, as emergency workers struggled to cope with the scale of the disaster.
The earthquake was 1,000 times more powerful than the tremor that devastated Christchurch in New Zealand last month, and the world’s seventh biggest since records began.
Tourists were feared to be among those unaccounted for after a ship with 100 people on board was reported to have been lost at sea and two trains, one of them a bullet train carrying hundreds of passengers in the Miyagi region, were listed as missing. The Foreign Office said it had been contacted by 400 British families concerned that they had been unable to get in touch with relatives in Japan, but had no information on any British casualties.
Experts were fighting to prevent a nuclear leak at Fukushima, 100 miles north of Tokyo.
More than 3,000 people living within two miles of the plant were evacuated, with those within a seven-mile radius told to stay indoors.
At first, the government insisted there was no risk of a leak from the plant and that everything was “under control”, despite the failure of the cooling system. But a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power, which owns the plant, admitted later that there was a problem.
“Pressure has risen in the container of the reactor and we are trying to deal with it,” he said.
His comments were followed by a statement from Japan’s nuclear safety agency saying radioactive vapour would be released to ease the pressure in the reactor, which had risen to one and a half times the norm.
Then came an admission from Japan’s trade minister that “a small radiation leak” could occur at the plant.
Millions of Japanese prepared to spend an uneasy night in fear of a further major tremor as more than 50 aftershocks were reported. The worst affected area appeared to be in and around the sprawling port of Sendai, where the tsunami swallowed everything in its path, churning up houses, cars, trees and boats before dumping them several miles inland.
Seismologists picked up the first signs of the tremor in time for broadcasters to put out an emergency warning one minute before it shook northern Japan, giving millions of people time to take cover.
Japan, which sits at the junction of three continental plates on the Pacific “ring of fire”, experiences up to 2,000 noticeable tremors every year. Newer buildings are designed to withstand even the biggest earthquakes. But nothing could prepare the country for the tsunami which followed minutes later. Television news helicopters captured footage of an unstoppable tide of sludge as it spread across the parched rice fields around Sendai like ink spilt on paper.
Houses, cars, trees and anything else that stood in the way were churned up and became part of the advancing morass, adding to its destructive power as it moved hundreds of yards inland.
Footage showed drivers jumping out of their cars on a bridge in the city and watching as the water of the harbour surged up the main bridge piles, dismasting several large fishing boats as they were driven forward by the tide and crushed beneath the concrete arches.
Some of those stranded in the upstairs rooms in their homes waved white sheets out of windows, desperate to attract the attention of helicopters hovering overhead.
The family of Hannah Craggs, a 27-year-old English teacher who works in Sendai, said they feared for her safety last night after failing to make any contact with her since the earthquake. Her father, Gary, 51, from Wolverhampton, said: “We haven’t given up hope, we just want to hear from Hannah. It’s just unbelievable – she is due to come home in two weeks.
“She posted on her travel blog just a couple of days ago that she had survived her first quake out there – she said a 7.3 hit offshore a couple of days ago.
“They say when one hits there is often another to follow and that’s been the case here.”
In the port town of Ofunato, more than 300 houses were reported to have been destroyed, and a large section of Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in the Miyagi district, burned furiously into the night after fuel leaking from damaged cars caught fire and spread unchecked, with the emergency services unable to reach the area. “We were shaken so strongly for a while that we needed to hold on to something in order not to fall,” said a local government official in Kurihara in Miyagi.
“We couldn’t escape the building immediately because the tremors continued.”
In the coastal town of Aomori, at least five ocean-going ships were upended by the wave, coming to rest with the red hulls exposed as the waters drove inland, bursting sea defences and flooding harbourside streets. In Miyagi prefecture a schoolboy was swept away. Five people were reported to have been crushed to death by falling buildings in the Tokyo area.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Ken Hoshi, a local government official in Ishinomaki, a port city in Miyagi prefecture.
“The water came as far as to the train station, hundreds of metres away from the coast.”
The 41-year-old official said his city had turned into a flood zone. “I’m worried because I can’t contact my family. But because it’s my duty, I’m braced to spend the night here.”
After years of being drilled in earthquake survival procedures, television pictures showed many residents reacting with remarkable composure and calm. Some office workers remained on the telephone as the buildings shook around them and sent files and books tumbling to the floor.
Others were less assured. “I dashed out of my office. I sort of panicked and left behind my mobile phone and belongings,” said Aya Nakamura, an office worker in Tokyo.”
“You see the crane on top of that tall building under construction? I thought it might fall off the building because all the buildings around me were shaking badly,” she added. Asagi Machida, a 27-year-old web designer, was walking near a coffee shop when the earthquake hit Tokyo. “The images from the New Zealand earthquake are still fresh in my mind so I was really scared,” she said, “I couldn’t believe such a big earthquake was happening here.”
As the 500mph tidal wave spread out across the Pacific, tsunami warnings were issued as far away as Chile, but early fears of low-lying islands being swamped appeared to prove unfounded.
Hundreds of people living in parts of California were told to evacuate their beachside homes as a precaution, with the tidal waves expected to take 24 hours to subside.
The Japanese government said the earthquake, which was felt 1,500 miles away in Beijing, had caused “tremendous damage” and left seven million homes without power.
In Tokyo, several people were injured when the roof of a hall collapsed during a graduation ceremony.
The Queen sent a message to Emperor Akihito, saying: “I was saddened to hear of the tragic loss of life caused by the earthquake which has struck north-east Japan today.”
David Cameron said the earthquake was a “terrible reminder of the destructive power of nature” and sent his sympathies to the people of Japan, while William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain was ready to send humanitarian aid and search and rescue teams.
The last time a major earthquake hit Tokyo was in 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake claimed more than 140,000 lives, many of them in fires. In 1995 the Kobe earthquake killed more than 6,400 people.
The Foreign Office set up a helpline — 020 70080000 — for the families of British nationals living in Japan who are unable to contact loved ones.
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